Category Archives: Tech Net News

How to use Google to sync all your passwords; Top 10 senior citizen scams that affect the whole family; Google needs to fix what ails Chrome; Windows 10 on an old PC: When it comes to specs, how low can you go? How to use your smartphone less and be happier; Android tablets, Chromebooks, and convertibles: Which setup makes sense for you? Android malware masquerades as Nintendo game emulator; Inflatable anti-drowning device sits on your wrist like a mini life raft; Stop the inbox insanity! Hacking Team leak releases potent Flash 0day into the wild; Xbox Ultimate Game Sale kicks off; Triple your laptop display space with Sliden’Joy; You can now subscribe to Showtime online; CrowdSuit Wants To Help You Get Even With Your Phone Company; Rdio launches new curated stations; This is the tiny computer the BBC is giving to a million kids; PaperScan Free.

Top 10 senior citizen scams that affect the whole family – Users over the age of 50 have an especially difficult time keeping their identities and bank accounts safe, as they may find that all of the practical sense they have developed over the years to spot scams in real life just don’t translate on the internet. Scammers know how vulnerable older generations can be on the web, and they take advantage of unsuspecting victims everyday. This can cause stress not just for seniors, but also for their entire family unit. Younger generations may also be fearful of how vulnerable their parents or grandparents are to internet fraud.

Say goodbye to the keyboard: Tablets are now the only work device for four in ten workers – Who needs a keyboard, anyway? Nearly half of workers are doing all their work on a tablet, a proportion that’s set to rise rapidly. According to research from analyst firm IDC, tablets are now 40 percent of business users’ only enterprise device, a figure that rises further when two-in-one hybrid devices are added into the mix. While the majority of tablet users in enterprises currently still have at least one other work device, such as a desktop PC or notebook, according to Marta Fiorentini, IDC senior research analyst, standalone tablets’ share is set to increase.

How to use your smartphone less and be happier – Nine hours. That’s how much time college students spend on their phones each day, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions. It’s not entirely surprising. Whether you’re waiting in line for coffee or out “watching” fireworks overhead, it seems like everyone has their phone out in some capacity. It’s as if we prefer the confines of a pocketable screen with the world only in peripheral. So let’s learn to be healthier about our smartphone habits — here are 10 tricks to help with that.

Windows 10 on an old PC: When it comes to specs, how low can you go? – The days of Windows being a system hog are gone. So modest are the requirements for Windows 10, you may be able to run it on machines that shipped with Windows Vista eight years ago. But just how low can Windows 10 go when it comes to PC specs? Since Microsoft released the OS for testing last year people have been loading Windows 10 onto hardware dating back to 2003 – eons ago on the PC refresh timescale. Here are the low-end and long-in-the-tooth machines that proved capable of running Windows 10.

Triple your laptop display space with Sliden’Joy – Jumping from a multi-display desktop setup to a laptop can be a bit of a letdown, particularly if you’re rocking more than two displays. Fortunately, someone’s working on a way to double or triple your mobile screen space. The product is called Sliden’Joy, and it can clip a second and third display onto your laptop’s existing display. Or third and fourth, if you happen to be one of the select few who plunked down big bucks for a dual-screen laptop. Their pixel-packing panels come in three different sizes: 13, 15, and 17 inches. Sliden’Joy will come in several different finishes, too, so there ought to be one that’s a good fit for your notebook of choice. A single display (presumably the 13-incher) will run €199 (about $220), while dual-display packs start at €299 (about $330).

Hooks, The App That Lets You Get A Notification For Almost Anything, Lands On Android And Apple Watch – Hooks, the app that sends you push notifications triggered by things that are important to you, has a new version for Android, as well as the now almost obligatory Apple Watch app. Previously, the latest version of Hooks was iOS only. Apple’s smartwatch platform seems particularly suited to a service that lets you pick from 100 or so ‘channels’, consisting of 1 million-plus user created alerts, to keep you updated on anything from the latest tweet, news article or sports score, or something more specific such as a change in stock price or the current bitcoin exchange rate.

Rdio launches new curated stations, brings them to more countries – Rdio has already offered curated stations in the United States, Canada, and UK, but now users can listen in from Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. A major perk of Apple’s Beats 1 station is its widespread availability, and this seems to be Rdio’s answer to that.

Two tools that help you stop over-using words in your documents – I go through phases with my writing. Sometimes I feel like every second sentence needs to start with “but,” then I start using “however,” which becomes “nevertheless,” and on and on it goes until the bad habit stops. For times like those, it’s handy to use a word frequency tool to understand how often I’m using problem words. Here are two ways to get that done. One is easy and the other is a little advanced.

Tinder clone for Apple Watch uses heartbeat to determine matches – Imagine an alternate way of using dating app Tinder, where instead of looking at profiles on your smartphone and swiping right or left, you simply glance at your Apple Watch and the app know if you’re attracted to someone based on your heart-rate changes. That’s the idea behind design agency T3’s concept “Hands-free Tinder.” T3 built its app with the use of Apple’s recently released Watch SDK for detecting a user’s heartbeat. They claim to be releasing the app “soon,” but unless it’s really a cooperation with Tinder, a name change seems likely.

Google needs to fix what ails Chrome – Google Chrome has been (and still is) the single most popular browser on the planet. But recent issues with memory usage and stability have caused trust in Google’s go-to tool to wane.

Security:

Hacking Team leak releases potent Flash 0day into the wild – Researchers sifting through the confidential material stolen from spyware developer Hacking Team have already uncovered a weaponized exploit for a currently unpatched vulnerability in Adobe Flash, and they also may have uncovered attack code targeting Microsoft Windows and a hardened Linux module known as SELinux. The exploits can be used to surreptitiously install Hacking Team surveillance software, or other types of malware, on vulnerable computers with little or no indication anything is amiss. If the exploits leaked from the colossal Hacking Team breach are limited to two or three unpatched vulnerabilities in Flash, Windows, and SELinux, the resulting damage will be much less severe than it might have been. Still, with 400 gigabytes of data to digest, there may yet be other surprises to find.

Hacking Team used shockingly bad passwords – One of the biggest hacks of the year — not just in scope and size, but impact — is over. As reporters and interested parties sift through the debris of the attack that left Hacking Team crippled, a big question remains. How was someone able to walk in and swipe what appears to be the company’s entire cache of corporate data? The company used weak passwords.

Android malware masquerades as Nintendo game emulator – Palo Alto Networks found three variants of the malware, which it calls Gunpoder, masquerading as emulator applications used to play Nintendo games. Gunpoder apps can do a variety of invasive actions, including collecting bookmarks and browser histories, sending itself to other people over SMS, showing fraudulent advertisements and executing other code. And users get to pay for that data-stealing capability. When a Gunpoder app is launched, it asks users to buy a lifelong license for the emulator for US$0.20 or $0.49, payable through PayPal or Skrill.

Antivirus maker Avira is building a secure web browser – From the department of straightforward naming comes Avira Browser. Like most of the new custom browsers you’ve seen pop up, it’s based on Google’s open source Chromium code. That means it looks and functions very much like Chrome (for better or worse). Want to see what Avira Browser is all about? It’s currently a beta app, and unfortunately it’s not as easy to try as clicking a download link. You’ve got to create an account on Avira’s beta site, verify your email, and then apply to the Avira Browser beta. If you’re thought to be a worthy test pilot, they’ll send a link your way in a few days.

Lizard Squad hacker draws suspended sentence for online attacks – A teenager who is apparently a member of the Lizard Squad hacker group has received a two-year suspended sentence in Finland in connection with various cybercrimes including attacks against U.S. university servers. The seventeen-year-old, known as “Zeekill” and “Ryan,” was charged with 50,700 counts of hacking and other offenses including credit card fraud, according to a Lizard Squad Twitter account and Finnish news reports. In a Twitter post, Lizard Squad gloated that “Zeekill got a suspended sentence for 2 years. 0 time spent in prison.”

Company News:

Samsung Electronic’s Earnings Guidance Points To Another Disappointing Quarter – Another quarter, another lackluster earnings guidance from Samsung Electronics. Heralded as Apple’s arch rival in “The Great Smartphone War” just two years ago, Samsung’s performance has declined as competition from a bevy of other Android makers cuts into its market share. The company said today that its Q2 2015 earnings will likely miss expectations. Its operating profit is expected to be 6.9 trillion won (about $6.13 billion), a four percent decline from a year ago, and below analysts’ expectations for 7.2 trillion won. Consolidated sales slipped eight percent to 48 trillion won, below forecasts for 53 trillion won.

Gartner: No help for the PC biz from Windows 10 – Windows 10 won’t help the struggling PC business out of its multi-year slump in 2015, researcher Gartner said today. But it might next year. “The release of Windows 10 on 29 July will contribute to a slowing professional demand for mobile PCs and premium ultra-mobiles in 2015, as lifetimes extend by three months,” said Gartner analyst Ranjit Atwal in a statement Tuesday. “However, as suppliers and buyers adjust to new prices, Windows 10 could boost replacements during 2016.” From Gartner’s perspective, the mere appearance of Windows 10 will result in delayed replacement PC purchases as enterprises and other large organizations put plans on hold as they begin evaluating the OS.

Jolla splits business, refocuses efforts on software – Its been a little over two years since the birth of Jolla. The company was created shortly after then-CEO of Nokia, Stephen Elop, dismantled the Meego team and decided to pioneer Nokia’s future with Windows Phone. While things didn’t fair so well for Nokia, the ex-Nokia staff that formed Jolla has slowly and steadily solidified its small place in the mobile world. Today, Jolla has announced that they will refocus their efforts on their Sailfish OS licensing and development business and create a new company dedicated to hardware.

AMD preannounces lower revenue due to poor demand for its APUs – AMD warned Monday that its second-quarter revenues would fall by 8%, due to a lower demand for PCs than it had previously expected. AMD said previously that revenue could fall by as much as 3%. AMD specifically blamed weaker-than-expected demand for its APUs, which combine a CPU and a graphics chip and make up its A-series product line. The company had already slashed A-series APU prices in late 2014 to help move product. In the second quarter, AMD said, it expects channel sales and channel inventory reduction efforts to be in line with the company’s plans.

Uber wants to buy Tesla’s entire first batch of self-driving cars – It’s no secret Uber is excited about our future of self-driving cars. The company’s business model revolves around drivers using their own vehicles to transport goods and people, but for Uber those drivers represent a significant expense. Self-driving cars, assuming the legislation will reach a point where drivers are no longer required, will eliminate that expense. Uber made partnerships in recent times to work on autonomous driving technologies, and more recently the ridesharing service’s CEO has expressed a lot of interest in Tesla’s future self-driving vehicles.

Sony not looking to exit mobile market, says CEO – Sony Mobile has been struggling to compete in the smartphone market, but the company’s CEO has revealed that it is in the process of turning things around with a long term strategy and won’t be exiting the space. Ever since inexpensive, feature-packed smartphones started making their way to the market, traditional high-quality device makers such as HTC and Sony have found it hard to sell their own devices, especially in emerging markets which are responsible for high volume sales.

Games and Entertainment:

You can now subscribe to Showtime online – Showtime is now offering an online subscription, allowing customers to watch its shows and movies without also getting cable. The subscription is being offered through a few different apps and sites, including Showtime’s iPhone and iPad apps, the Apple TV, Roku, Hulu, and PlayStation Vue. The subscription costs $10.99 — although some services, like Hulu, are offering it for less — and grants access to Showtime’s back catalog, its currently screening films, and even some of its live feeds.

Sony just rolled out a big UI update to its PS Now game streaming service – PlayStation Now, Sony’s “Netflix for gaming” service that rolled out last year, hasn’t changed dramatically since it launched. The company added a much-needed subscription option earlier this year to help fix the otherwise crazy pricing structure PS Now had for game rentals, but there otherwise hasn’t been much in the way of updates to speak of. That changes today — a major user interface update has just been pushed out to PlayStation Now on the PS4. The update was included in last week’s PS4 software update, but Sony is just now turning it on.

Xbox Ultimate Game Sale kicks off; here are all the best deals – Dozens of games are marked down for the duration of the event, which begins today and ends July 13, including Battlefield Hardline, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and more. Check out a breakdown of this week’s Deals With Gold and Ultimate Game Sale offers below. All deals are good through July 13 and require an Xbox Live Gold subscription except where otherwise noted.

Off Topic (Sort of):

CrowdSuit Wants To Help You Get Even With Your Phone Company – We all know telecoms are evil. But as an individual, there’s rarely a way to fight back. Enter CrowdSuit, a new company that aims to help phone customers seek legal redress against phone companies even when they cannot file class action suits. Telecoms increasingly are including a contract provision that prevents customers from filing class action lawsuits against them. Because the cost of an individual lawsuit is often greater than the damages a customer would receive if they won a suit on an issue like throttling, it’s not worth it for them to sue alone. As a result, no one sues, and the telecoms get a free ride. In some states just filing a lawsuit would cost $70, and the amount customers could win by filing would be far less than that.

This is the tiny computer the BBC is giving to a million kids – Earlier this year the BBC announced that it planned to give one million students across the UK a programmable microcomputer, called the BBC Micro Bit, to help them learn the basics of coding. Now four months later, the design of the device has been finalized, ahead of its scheduled rollout date in October. The Micro Bit features two buttons, an array of programmable LED lights, and an in-built motion sensor. Users can connect their microcomputer to bigger devices by Bluetooth or USB, or to the similarly tiny Raspberry Pi through it’s input-output rings.

This Is Apple and Google’s Next Big Battleground – For most of my 35-year technology career, fights over operating systems have dominated the landscape. First, it was MS-DOS againt the original Apple II OS. Then it shifted to Microsoft’s Windows vs. the Mac OS. Today it’s between Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Google’s Android and Chrome OS. These wars have become ideological, with fanboys and devout followers in each camp. But there’s another fight brewing, too — the battle over artificial intelligence, or AI.

Inflatable anti-drowning device sits on your wrist like a mini life raft – Life vests are effective, but bulky. They’re not the sort of thing you haul around with you wherever you go. The Kingii on Indiegogo wants to save your life by being attached to your body at all times when you’re enjoying a day at the ocean or the pool. The 4.9-ounce Kingii (pronounced “kin-gee”) is worn on the wrist. A lever triggers a carbon dioxide cartridge to inflate an orange, balloon-like float. The float pulls you back up to the surface of the water, whether you’re out surfing or taking a dip in a pool. Cartridges can be swapped out to make the wristband reusable. The Kingii appears to be going gangbusters on Indiegogo. The initial $65,000 funding goal has been engulfed by over $445,000 in pledges with 23 days left to run. However, $400,000 of that comes from one anonymous backer.

10 Spectacular Building Demolitions – In this roundup, we pay tribute to the bold men and women who bring down buildings for a living by sharing incredible footage of them at work. These are some of the most ambitious, technically difficult, or just plain cool to look at building demolitions ever caught on tape.

Study hints kids are future cord-cutters – The television industry has been scrambling to stave off the pressure it feels from services like Netflix and the subscribers it is losing to them. Its efforts may prove to be in vain, however, at least according to a recent study. Miner & Co. Studio conducted research and has found that 57-percent of kids prefer watching videos on their tablet or smartphone rather than on a television. In addition, a common parental discipline might be driving kids further away from television, causing them to associate it with punishment.

Something to think about:

“Friendship… is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”

– Muhammad Ali

Today’s Free Downloads:

160WiFi – 160WiFi provides a free WiFi hotspot. No hidden cost, no function limit, and never waste your money on those expensive ones that won’t work.

Enjoy Wi-Fi anywhere. 160WiFi offers the greatest choice of available Wi-Fi hotspots anywhere like home, office, airport and so on.

Secure. 160WiFi is safe to use. With strong password security, It allows no one to connect to your wireless hotspot without your permission.

Save money. 160WiFi can turn your computer into a wireless router, allowing your phone or other portable devices to connect the hotspot to surf the internet for free. This cut the data usage of your phone and save much money.

The legislation, approved 15-0 in a closed-door hearing, remains “classified.” The relevant text is contained in the 2016 intelligence authorization, a committee aide told Ars by telephone early Monday. Its veil of secrecy would be lifted in the coming days as the package heads to the Senate floor, the aide added.

The proposal comes as the Islamic State and other terror groups have taken to the Internet to gain converts across the globe, including in the United States. The FBI issued a public warning in March about American teens being susceptible to the Islamic State’s online recruitment tactics. And the Brookings Institute estimated in March that there were as many as 70,000 pro-Islamic State Twitter accounts. Twitter has removed tens of thousands of these terror propaganda accounts, which violate its terms of service.

FBI chief James Comey warned that the increasing use of strong encryption will make it harder for law enforcement to access email or other digital conversations.

“There is simply no doubt that bad people can communicate with impunity in a world of universal strong encryption,” he said in a post for the Lawfare blog, and warned this will have an impact on public safety.

Apple’s and Google’s encryption plans have not gone down well with US law enforcement, and the agency’s director says the companies are leading us down a dark path.

He wrote: “That tension is vividly illustrated by the current ISIL threat, which involves ISIL operators in Syria recruiting and tasking dozens of troubled Americans to kill people, a process that increasingly takes part through mobile messaging apps that are end-to-end encrypted, communications that may not be intercepted, despite judicial orders under the Fourth Amendment.”

Thanks to the Edward Snowden revelations about pervasive internet snooping by US and UK intelligence agencies, tech companies have been turning to encryption to protect their customers’ conversations. This has led to claims from law enforcement that important sources of intelligence are ‘going dark’.

Since October, U.S. law enforcement officials have called for a special door that would allow government agencies to access encrypted data that could help them in investigations. The report tells us that a backdoor for the government and law enforcement also provides an opening that could be exploited by hackers.

The experts argue such special access points “pose far more grave security risks, imperil innovation on which the world’s economies depend, and raise more thorny policy issues than we could have imagined when the Internet was in its infancy.”

Snowden, who leaked information about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, “spurred a necessary debate” about the collection of U.S. telephone records, former Attorney General Eric Holder told Yahoo News.

The DOJ, however, hasn’t changed its official position on Snowden, a spokesman said. The DOJ wants Snowden to return to the U.S. from Russia and face criminal charges, the spokesman said by email.

Holder, who left the DOJ earlier this year, filed espionage charges against Snowden in 2013.

Holder declined to give Yahoo News details about what a possible deal with Snowden would look like.

NSA officials have reportedly considered a plea deal for Snowden, including some jail time. But Ben Wizner, one of Snowden’s lawyers, rejected the possibility of pleading guilty to a felony.

Online-Shopping Scams to Watch Out For; Five data recovery utilities;Holiday Tech Gifts for Men;Xbox One Kinect sees through your clothes; The rise of the Chromebook;Hacking for Fun and (Not) Profit;SpringPublisher 4.0 (Free);Protect Privacy on Public Wi-Fi;A website for women scorned;11 games worth revisiting; iPad Air explodes.

Five data recovery utilities – I’ve lost count of the number of times over the years that I have had friends, family, and even clients contact me because a hard disk failed and no backup of the data exists. In these types of situations the only option is often to use a data recovery utility to try to get back some of the data. This article discusses five such utilities.

Yes, Xbox One Kinect can see you through your clothes – Anything that would stick out and affect your clothing in some way can be seen with the Kinect camera. If you take a look at the video from Microsoft’s research group on the new Kinect sensor, you can see it’s really not at all difficult to make out a penis. Depending on the type of clothing, this same effect would be present for breasts.

How to Protect Your Privacy on Public Wi-Fi Networks – Working unsecured on a public hotspot could get you into trouble. To find out just what the risks were, we consulted Con Mallon, a mobility expert with Symantec. There are three major ways these free, open hotspots could get you into trouble, he explains.

Open pages in Chrome as panels with PIP Viewer extension – It’s a great way to dock your Facebook news feed, Twitter feed, or a YouTube video, whether you are keeping an eye on a TED talk or a Cleveland Browns game from the mid-1980’s when Bernie Kosar was at the height of his powers.

Meet Sense, 3D Systems’ Cheap, Dead-Simple 3D Scanner For The Masses – South Carolina-based 3D Systems just recently outed a cheapish, consumer-friendly scanner called the Sense, and I swung by Engadget’s Expand show in New York this weekend to see the thing in action. Here’s the TL;DR if you’re on a tight schedule: at $399 price is right and I came away awfully impressed with the little thing. And I do mean little, as 3D Systems concocted a portable affair that’s about the size of a small hardback or staple gun.

Hacking for Fun and (Not) Profit – Thanks to a handful of commands I’d typed into the terminal window on my loaner Linux laptop, I’d managed to take over a remote Windows machine. While giggling fiendishly the entire time, I’d also added a user account for myself and remotely rebooted that computer. I was hacking, or rather, proto-hacking, and it was a tremendous rush.

iPad Air explodes, faulty overcharge protection circuit suspected – An iPad Air spontaneously combusted this week in a Vodafon store in Canberra, Australia, filling the store with smoke and sending a continuous stream of sparks flying from the charging port of the device. The store was evacuated, the fire brigade was called, and the spectacular flaming tablet was officially extinguished. No one was injured in the fireworks.

All about beamforming, the faster Wi-Fi you didn’t know you needed – Instead of broadcasting a signal to a wide area, hoping to reach your target, why not concentrate the signal and aim it directly at the target? Sometimes the simplest concepts are the most difficult to execute, especially at retail price points. Fortunately, beamforming is finally becoming a common feature in 802.11ac Wi-Fi routers (at least at the high end). Here’s how it works.

Security:

Stealing PIN Codes With a Wink and a Nod– The technique is deceptively simple in concept: The researchers’ software runs on the mobile device and when a user types in her PIN code, the software records keystroke sounds through the microphone and uses the camera to judge the phone’s orientation and watch the user’s face while she’s typing. Using those inputs, the researchers’ software has shown that it can infer the user’s four-digit PIN code better than 50 percent of the time after just five attempts on a Samsung Galaxy S3.

Women Utterly Destroy Men in Social Engineering Competition – How did women do against their male counterparts? “This year, the women not just won,” said Hadnagy. “They obliterated men.” Three of the top five slots went to women, and the top scoring social engineer had over 200 points more than the next highest scoring participant. “The women winning shows something, but we have no data that shows they were women talking to men.”

FBI posts $50,000 reward for ‘Lover Spy’ malware writer – The FBI has offered large rewards for information that could help catch accused cybercriminals who have been wanted for years. The details published on the FBI website covers all types of cybercrime, including database theft and hacking, telecom fraud, and malware scams. But it is the curious tale of Carlos Enrique Perez-Melara that offers the most more unusual case.

Motorola patents a tattoo that works as a wireless mic and lie detector – In the Motorola patent application, the tattoo is described as having a microphone, wireless transceiver, power supply, and a power controller. Signals would be passed from the electronic tattoo to your smartphone via NFC, and it would only wake up when instructed to do so by a particular audio stream — presumably something your phone would broadcast when a call connects, for example.

Intel acquires interactive education startup Kno – The proliferation of tablets have made using digital textbooks a more feasible choice than they were even a handful of years ago, and with them has come a growing number of textbook-related digital bookstores. Kno is one such company, and following rumors of such, Intel has officially acquired the startup, boosting its own Education business.

Google invests $608 million in Finnish data center – Google is investing $608 million into its Finnish data center in a bid to meet mobile video demand. The site in Hamina, some 150 kilometers outside Helsinki, was opened two years ago after Google bought a facility from a Finnish paper company for $272 million. It is currently one of three Google data centers in Europe.

Games and Entertainment:

Hot PC Games for the 2013 Holiday Season – With some of the most anticipated PC game releases delayed until 2014, we have put together a list of the hottest PC titles that have and will become available this holiday season.

Xbox One boots in 17 seconds, among leaked revelations – The latest Xbox One revelations ahead of its official Nov. 22 release date come by way of Twitter user @Moonlightswami, whose early acquisition of a console was likely made possible through a mistake on the part of Target. Among @Moonlightswami’s confirmed findings are a 17-second boot time, an initial 500MB software update, some very large game downloads in the Xbox Live Marketplace, and others.

New World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor, announced – There will be new raids spread across seven zones, a new PvP zone, and new rewards causing you to skip work for a week so you can better manage the infinitesimal drop rates. Along with these usual additions, Draenor adds a new mechanic where players can build, upgrade, and maintain their own garrison. Players can also recruit NPCs and send them off to gather resources or complete quests.

PS4 Games You’ll Want on Day One – If you’re planning to buy a PlayStation 4 on launch day, you’ll need games. Here are some of the most intriguing titles available.

Off Topic (Sort of):

She’s a Homewrecker: A scorn-filled website for women scorned– We all know infidelity stings, but who’s to blame when it happens? If you ask the community behind She’s a Homewrecker, it’s not the people breaking the boundaries of their relationship, it’s “the other women.” She’s a Homewrecker is basically an online burn book that’s been “exposing the women who choose to become involved with an involved man” since 2012. Slighted women are encouraged to upload several photos of the mistress who’s driving them mad, and their stories to the site. Each “homewrecker” is listed and tagged by her full name and the state she lives in.

Why dollars are better than bitcoins (and always will be) – Say anything negative about Bitcoin and the moles come out of the dark to throw stones. But the truth is that dollars are better than Bitcoins. And here’s why. (I’m not a mole – but, I’ll wager 2 bushels of wheat against one goatskin that this writer has a limited perspective on MONEY.)

Something to think about:

“All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”

– Sir Winston Churchill

Today’s Free Downloads:

WOT (Web of Trust) – Web safety is not just about viruses and malware. WOT’s ratings are powered by a global community of millions of users who rate websites based on their own experiences. Add WOT to you browser for protection against online threats that only real life experience can detect, such as scams, untrustworthy links, and rogue web stores.

SpringPublisher 4.0 – SpringPublisher is a professional and easy to use desktop publishing software. With its included various templates and online template store, powerful multi-layer editor, detailed help-files, SpringPublisher enables you to design and print Business Card, Flyer, Postcard, Letterhead and other artworks within a few minutes.

In Pursuit of Freedom – The Pushback Continues:

Internet engineers urge security against online spies – Members of the Internet Engineering Task Force discussed at its meeting in Vancouver, Canada last week how the organization could turn its plan to protect the web from government spying into action. IETF chair Jari Arkko also spoke at a UN event in Bali about the need for the engineers behind the Internet to push for new standards that would make it more difficult for government intelligence agencies like the NSA to spy on Internet users en masse. In his speech, Arkko suggested two main tenets to the plan extending SSL-like encryption to all pages of the Internet, and improving encryption algorithms.

GCHQ hacked GRX and OPEC employees via Quantum inserts, Snowden papers show – A new analysis of the Snowden papers by German magazine Der Spiegel shows GCHQ–the English counterpart to the US’s NSA–served false copies of LinkedIn and Slashdot pages to install malware on a few target individuals’ computers. This latest revelation is not a mass spying program, but a server-heavy, speed-dependent initiative to spy on key individuals deemed to be assets by the GCHQ. Targets included employees of GRX providers Comfon, Mach (now owned by Syniverse), and nine members of OPEC, the global oil cartel.

Snowden serves up another lesson on insider threats – The Edward Snowden saga continues to serve up valuable lessons on the dangers posed to enterprise data by insiders with privileged access to systems and networks. The latest lesson involves the risks of allowing password sharing among employees.

WinPatrol Plus stands guard over your PC – WinPatrol Plus has stood guard over Windows PCs for years. But the latest version understands that computer users don’t need to be alerted to absolutely everything happening on their PC.

How to get free Play store cash from Google – Google wants your opinion, so it has released an app called Google Opinion Rewards for Android users. The app is free and only takes a few minutes to set up, with the process requiring you to take a survey. Your answers to the initial survey will be used to customize the surveys you’ll receive on your device in the future.

The Ultimate WordPress Guide – WordPress is one of the most powerful blogging platforms online. Whether you need a personal outlet, a business site, or want to cultivate a personal brand. Ranging from free, quick-and-easy blogs, to professional news engines, WordPress has something for everyone. (Super tips and advice)

Survey: Americans Intrigued But Skeptical of Wearable Tech – According to a new poll released this week by Harris Interactive, nearly half of Americans (or 46 percent) are at “least a little interested” in owning a watch-like wearable computing device while 27 percent are “very or somewhat interested.” The online survey of 2,577 U.S. adults, conducted between Sept. 18 and 24, also found that nearly half of respondents are at least mildly interested in owning some other type of wearable tech gadget, though fewer expressed interest in headsets or glasses.

GIMP flees SourceForge over dodgy ads and installer – The ads weren’t The GIMP devs’ only beef, as they were willing to tolerate them until SourceForge’s new Windows installer came along. As the devs note, that tool “… bundles third-party offers with Free Software packages. We do not want to support this kind of behavior, and have thus decided to abandon SourceForge.”

Stop the Shockwave Flash Chrome crash – Here’s the problem: Chrome comes with its own version of Flash. In addition, you may have another Flash installation, downloaded from Adobe or bundled with your computer. The trick is to turn one of them off.

Microsoft depicts IE11 as robot-fighting anime heroine – Meet Inori Aizawa. According to her Facebook profile she was born in September of 2013, and she’s come to show the world how awesome Internet Explorer 11 is — by single-handedly destroying a legion of evil robots – anime style.

Five settings that increase battery life on Android 4.4 KitKat – With every new operating system comes a fresh set of features that serve up convenience…at the cost of your battery life. In many cases, it’s just not worth having your phone die when you need it most. If you’re looking to get more juice out of your phone’s battery, or are one of the many people with a Nexus 5 plagued by a possible battery issue, change these settings.

Fire at Internet Archive destroys equipment and materials, but data safe – The Internet Archive is working to produce a full assessment of the damaged and destroyed materials; meanwhile, it is continuing its scanning efforts at an alternate location. In addition to assistance in the form of donations, the group is also asking for more materials to be donated for scanning in order to keep the scanning employees affected by the fire working.

Microsoft narrows down the software affected by recent exploits – Today’s post stated that so far the only attacks have been directed against Office 2007 running on Windows XP. The exploit itself affects Office 2003 and 2007 and is present regardless of the version of Windows that are used by those programs. Office 2010 also has the exploit, but only when used on a PC with Windows XP or Windows Server 2003.

Hackers make off with thousands of Bitcoins in Inputs.io breach – As Bitcoins see a steady climb in value, some unfortunate folks have found their accounts drained thanks to hackers who breached Inputs.io, taking a total of 4100 bitcoins. At present exchange rates, this amounts to about $1,230,000 USD, and unfortunately for those who were affected, the bitcoin wallet does not have the funds or other means to pay back the lost sums.

NSA Tangled Up In Russian Ransomware Threats – Is the NSA demanding that you pay up for a cybercrime? How outrageous is that? Luckily, the NSA isn’t actually behind any of this. This is just another scamto get your money involving fake law enforcement. In a recent blog post, IT security company Blue Coat addressed last week’s attacks on visitors to the php.net Web site. Their investigation revealed that one of the sneakier ransomware applications wrote ransom notes to victims using personal information the victims believed was from the NSA.

Company News:

Twitter IPO sees early 73% rise on NYSE – Twitter begins its journey into the public realm with their Initial Public Offering, seeing a relatively quick rise in price of each share in early hours of trading. The Twitter IPO began with the company offering up 70 million shares with stock priced at a cool $26 USD per share. Soon after the initial offering, the first trade was made at $45.10 a share, making an impressive 73% jump right off the bat.

Surging mobile sales help PC king Lenovo haul in cash – Chinese PC maker Lenovo posted a 36 percent year-over-year growth in its net profit in the third quarter, with demand for the company’s smartphones and tablets continuing to outpace shipments for its PC products.

Apple stores to mysteriously close early Nov 17 and 18 – A number of Apple stores around the world are mysteriously set to close early next weekend. Several stores in Canada and stores in other countries will be operating under special hours on November 17 and November 18. Exactly why the stores are closing early is unknown.

Games and Entertainment:

GTA Online stimulus package arrives: software fix today – This week the folks at Rockstar Games have begun pushing a real-deal set of fixes for the Grand Theft Auto Online environment. This piece of the GTA:V or Grand Theft Auto 5 universe saw some heavy oddities going on online when the service was launched including loss of progress, vehicles disappearing in garages, and straight up goofs in modifications. This week Rockstar’s big fixes are in order along with the stimulus package they promised for early adopters.

Listen up! 5 gaming headsets vie for sound supremacy – A helicopter circles overhead. The harsh stutter of automatic weapons crackles in the distance, but what you’re most concerned about right now is the crunch of boots on gravel. Someone—friend or foe—is approaching. A high-quality headset can help you precisely identify the location of those audio cues. Crisp, clear sound can mean the difference between life and death when you’re gaming, rendering your headset as vital to your virtual well-being as any weapon.

Marvel Teaming With Netflix For Four New Superhero Shows And One Miniseries – Marvel and Netflix are teaming up for a sprawling, multi-year content partnership that will focus on NYC heroes centered in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, the company announced today. This will involve the creation of four new serialized shows, culminating in a multi-part miniseries tying the characters in each together.

PlayStation 4 launch apps detailed with Netflix, Hulu Plus, GameCenter and more – As the PlayStation 4’s launch later this month closes in, Sony has announced the apps that will be available with the gaming console upon its launch. With the console will come some big-name apps that many gamers enjoy, including a handful of entertainment apps, as well as offerings for sports fans and some free entertainment options.

Off Topic (Sort of):

‘So, that’s why it’s called Bluetooth!’ and other surprising tech name origins – The stories of how some of the world’s biggest brands and technologies came up with their names open a window to a different era—a simpler time before Web squatters took all the normal names and corporations focus-grouped language to death. Here we present the hidden—and occasionally accidental—histories behind some of the biggest names in tech.

Police need judge’s specific permission to search computers, Supreme Court of Canada rules – Police entering a home with a search warrant have no right to search any computers they find unless a judge has given them specific permission, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously on Thursday. “It is difficult to imagine a more intrusive invasion of privacy than the search of a personal or home computer,” Justice Thomas Cromwell wrote for the court.

Alleged Peeping Tom claims First Amendment right to upskirt – The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is mulling just whether an alleged upskirter’s right to snap women’s nether regions is defended by the US constitution, and indeed whether women who unwittingly expose themselves in public have any right to privacy.

Scientists find some bacteria may thrive in zero gravity – As if space wasn’t already dangerous enough, some newly reported research on bacterial growth in orbit indicates some strains of microorganisms can thrive in zero gravity, even if they are deprived of nutrients. This could change the way astronauts prepare for and live in space, especially as the prospect of long-term space flight becomes more real.

Engineers Build The World’s First Real 3D-Printed Gun – The Liberator, for all the hoopla, was not really a gun. This 3D-printed firearm, on the other hand, is a gun. It is a copy of a 1911 made using public-domain plans and a laser sintering system that solidifies metal powder. It fires just like a real semi-automatic pistol The gun, created by Solid Concepts, is completely legal.

Something to think about:

From J.K. Galbraith’s The Affluent Society:

“The family which takes its mauve and cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, blighted buildings, billboards, and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground… They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reﬂect vaguely on the curious unevenness of their blessings” (suggested by Michael F.)

Today’s Free Downloads:

Windows Firewall Control 4.0.3.0 – Windows Firewall Control is a nifty little application which extends the functionality of the Windows Firewall and provides quick access to the most frequent options of Windows Firewall. It runs in the system tray and allows user to control the native firewall easily without having to waste time by navigating to the specific part of the firewall. This is the best tool to manage the native firewall from Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Driver Booster 1.1 – Driver Booster is a brand new driver updating tool. It protects your PC from hardware failures, conflicts, and resolves system crash problems caused by outdated drivers. All old drivers can be detected by simply clicking on the “Scan” button, and then you just need to click “Update All” button to refresh these outdated drivers. Compared with other driver updating tools, IObit Driver Booster can improve your PC performance for gaming as well.

“We have to make surveillance expensive again” says Bruce Schneier – The ongoing revelations of governmental electronic spying point to a problem larger than National Security Agency malfeasance, or even of security weaknesses. Rather the controversy arising from Edward Snowden’s leaked documents suggest we face unresolved issues around data ownership, argued security expert Bruce Schneier.

Does F-Secure’s antivirus turn a blind eye to spook spyware? CEO hits back – Antivirus maker F-Secure has responded to privacy campaigners’ concerns over the handling of spook-grade surveillance malware – by insisting its security software slays government spyware wherever it can. In an open letter to the Bits of Freedom team, F-Secure president and chief exec Christian Fredrikson said his firm stands by its 2001 vow to not discriminate in favor of intelligence agencies when block potentially malicious code.

As US gov’t surveillance watchdog group opens for business, questions linger – Monday’s hearing saw testimony from legal officials from the Department of Justice, the National Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the FBI. The government officials largely argued for the continuation of their programs as is. In particular, there was forceful defense of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows for the bulk telecom metadata handover to the government.

NSA spying poisons the cloud market – A PriceWaterhouseCoopers survey found 54 percent of German companies find the cloud risky after learning of NSA spying. An earlier study by PwC finds that 84% of CEOs are confident about cyber security. If they only knew the truth.

NSA spying prompts open TrueCrypt encryption software audit to go viral – A unique effort to crowdsource a security audit of the popular TrueCrypt open source encryption software appears to be going viral three weeks after it was launched by two U.S. based researchers in response to concerns that the National Security Agency may have tampered with it. The intiative has so far garnered more than $57,000 in donations and bitcoins and attracted over 1,000 volunteers from 30 countries, including a techncial advisory group comprised of some of the world’s best regarded cryptographers.

Microsoft to end Windows XP antivirus updates – Microsoft is doing its level best to get Windows XP holdouts to upgrade to a newer operating system. No new patches will arrive after April 8, 2014, and now the company is pondering cutting off antivirus updates at that point, too.

Five most useful apps for travel – The very thought of having to travel for business makes most cringe. You’re away from your family, familiar surroundings, the amenities of normalcy – it can send you into a frenzy of anxiety. Let’s take a look at five tools that could easily make your business travel much more efficient, productive, and successful.

SwiftKey Android Keyboard Gets Big Update That Unifies Tablets and Phones – While stock Android keyboards have vastly improved in the last year or two, there are still some extremely popular third-party replacements available in the Play Store. SwiftKey has long been at the top of the heap when it comes to Android input, and it has just gotten a major update that unifies the phone and tablet apps while also adding some much needed features.

Control your PC with these 5 speech recognition programs – We found five Windows-based options worth a test drive. They were tested under pretty rugged conditions, too: my native Scottish brogue, and my German accent honed by 13 years spent in Wuerzburg. While none was quite able to slay the powerful Dragon, they could still be useful for many tasks.

Hula hopes to make hookup apps more responsible — and the STD talk a little more fun – What we euphemistically call “dating apps” are becoming incredibly popular because they find people in your vicinity who are DTF (down to, uh, flirt). That’s where Hula comes in. The new iOS app is piggybacking on the success of hookup apps by letting users share their STD test results in a fun, millennial-friendly way—or as fun as you can possibly get when you’re talking about chlamydia. (Bollocks! Sharing “STD test results in a fun, millennial-friendly way.” Let me out of this lunatic asylum!)

Roman Ruins HD for iPad Takes You On a Tour of 350 Ancient Locations – Not everyone can afford a quick jaunt around the Mediterranean to view the ruins of ancient Rome, but there’s a new iPad app that offers a reasonably facsimile without the whole traveling the world aspect. Roman Ruins HD includes 1,500 images of ruins from all over the Mediterranean with massive pillars, detailed stonework, and more.

Samba TV releases new second-screen and TV apps for Sony devices – Samba TV, formerly known as Flingo, today released a slew of apps for Sony devices, including Bravia TVs, Blu-ray Disc players, and Blu-ray Home Theater devices patched into Sony Entertainment Network. The apps detect what is playing on your connected smart TV and automatically push related interactive content, which can then be accessed on second-screen devices such as smartphones and tablets or via the TV.

Security:

Mozilla releases 10 patches, five critical, for Firefox – Mozilla released 10 patches for three versions of its Firefox browser on Tuesday, five of which are considered critical and could be used to remotely install malicious code. The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned that the problems “could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code, bypass intended access restrictions, cause a denial-of-service condition or obtain sensitive information.”

iOS App Vulnerability Could Let Attackers Hijack Your Apps – During a Main-in-the-Middle attack, someone hijacks your connection to a secure site, receiving everything sent by either party and passing it along, possibly with malicious changes. But a MITM attack ends when you disconnect from the network. Not so any longer says Yair Amit from Skycure (the guys who hacked my iPhone). They’ve apparently uncovered a vulnerability that can permanently change the behavior of apps in iOS.

Now there’s a bug bounty program for the whole Internet – Microsoft and Facebook are sponsoring a new program that pays big cash rewards to whitehat hackers who uncover security bugs threatening the stability of the Internet at large. To qualify, the bugs must affect software implementations from a variety of companies, potentially result in severely negative consequences for the general public, and manifest themselves across a wide base of users.

Company News:

Twitter sets IPO price at $26 – The company said Wednesday that it plans to sell 70 million shares to the public starting Thursday. Underwriters have the option to sell an additional 10.5 million shares during the first 30 days. With the price announced, all eyes will be on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday morning to gauge investor reaction and demand for the stock, which will trade under the symbol TWTR.

With 30K Active Online Stores, Weebly Launches DIY eCommerce Platform To Take On Amazon And Shopify – Launching today, Weebly’s new eCommerce platform aims to bring simple online store creation to the masses, Rusenko says, and will provide businesses access to a mobile store and checkout, filtered product search advanced merchandising and an integrated shopping cart. The company’s new eCommerce tools will be available for free, which includes support for businesses selling up to five products.

Intel forms ‘Internet of Things’ division – Intel, eager to not be left behind like it was with smartphones and tablets, is forming an ‘Internet of Things’ division in an attempt to position itself to be able to capitalize from connected devices.

Games and Entertainment:

Call of Duty: Ghosts achieves $1 billion in sales on first day – When GTA V launched back in September the initial estimates predicted it could make $1 billion in its first month on sale. The game surpassed that total in just three days. But while the GTA franchise may be big, it’s quite possible that Call of Duty is bigger. Activision is reporting over $1 billion worth of sales of Call of Duty: Ghosts in the first 24 hours.

Two top PC games gain Linux support ahead of SteamOS – Valve’s Linux-based SteamOS hasn’t arrived just yet, nor have the company’s living room-ready “Steam Machines,” but a couple of notable game developers have already prepared Linux ports of their hit titles. This week, Metro: Last Light and Super Meat Boy both got the open-source OS treatment.

Watch 33 years of video game titles flash by in two minutes – As video games have become more like movies, so have the title sequences that accompany them. Once, they were mostly static — just glorified welcome screens dressed up with a bit of animation or color. But now, they’re meticulously designed, sometimes taking months to produce. Watch as Art of the Title flips through three decades’ worth of opening credits.

Off Topic (Sort of):

Revealed: Secrets of the “dash-cam” meteorite that rocked Russia – The asteroid impact that burst over Chelyabinsk, Russia on the morning of February 15 has provided a huge collection of new data that scientists have been analyzing since. This week, three papers, two in Nature and one in Science, describe new aspects of the meteorite’s airburst, building the most detailed forensic picture that we have of the events of that morning.

“Sweetie” virtual child takes down 1000 pedophiles in 10 weeks – Technology is directly involved in our daily lives, making it more convenient, more efficient, and more entertaining. There’s another side to technological advances that we don’t see on the daily, however, and it is arguably the most important of them all — the ability to prevent crimes that otherwise would slip under the radar. Such is the case with “Sweetie,” a virtual 10-year-old girl created to lure in pedophiles who are subsequently identified and handed over to law enforcement.

Netflix’s war with movie theaters – The company’s content chief thinks movies should appear on Netflix on the same day they open in theaters, before the buzz wears off.

Of punchcards, platters, and wooden mice: The PC’s origin story – Let’s revel in the roots of the wonder machines that make our lives easier. From the first GPUs and CPUs to the forerunner of the Internet, these are the breakthroughs that birthed computers as we know them today. If nothing else, staring history in the face reminds us that all computing devices share the same background, regardless of what shape and form PCs take today.

Something to think about:

“Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.”

Junkware Removal Tool 6.0.8 – Junkware Removal Tool is a security utility that searches for and removes common adware, toolbars, and potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) from your computer. A common tactics among freeware publishers is to offer their products for free, but bundle them with PUPs in order to earn revenue. This tool will help you remove these types of programs.

In Pursuit of Freedom – The Pushback Continues:

Googlers say “F*** you” to NSA, company encrypts internal network – Google has started to encrypt its traffic between its data centers, effectively halting the broad surveillance of its inner workings by the joint National Security Agency-GCHQ program known as MUSCULAR. The move turns off a giant source of information to the two agencies, which at one point accounted for nearly a third of the NSA’s daily data intake for its primary intelligence analysis database—at least for now.

Google engineers rage at NSA – Google cryptography engineers explain their anger at the NSA for violating security systems they built to stop criminals.

Web inventor Berners-Lee sounds alarm on mass spying – Sir Tim Berners-Lee says the activities of the NSA and its UK counterpart, the GCHQ, could warp his baby, making the Internet vulnerable to attack and depriving humanity of a “safe space” for problem solving.

Google Engineers reply to NSA: “all too often, laws are for the little people” – There are a couple of Google engineers working for the Google security team replying in kind to the NSA and the GCHQ (on the other side of the ocean) regarding the most recent round of Edward Snowden-leaked documents on government snooping into Google and Yahoo cloud networks. What you’ll find is a rather everyman-level bit of talk that essentially anyone can understand. Per Google’s Mike Hearn: “We designed this system to keep criminals out. There’s no ambiguity here.”

Kaspersky: “We detect and remediate any malware attack,” even by NSA – Antivirus provider Kaspersky said it has designed its products to detect all malware, even if it’s sponsored by the National Security Agency or other government entities under programs espoused to target terrorists or other threats. “We have a very simple and straightforward policy as it relates to the detection of malware: We detect and remediate any malware attack, regardless of its origin or purpose,” officials with the Moscow-based company wrote in a statement issued Wednesday. “There is no such thing as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ malware for us.”

Apple discloses what it’s sharing with governments – We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the US government secretly gathering information from Google, Yahoo, and other tech giants. But what about Apple? The Cupertino-based corporation, not yet caught up in the NSA scandals, has decided to take disclosure into its own hands. They’ve issued a report detailing what type of information they are sharing with what national governments.

How to fix your PC’s worst annoyances – Windows oozes with all sorts of hackle-raising “features” that interfere with just plain using your PC. But don’t chuck your monitor across the room! By the time you’re done reading this article, your headaches should be gone.

The phablet-ization of the smartphone – The trend toward large-touchscreen smartphones — 5-in. and above — reached its highest level yet in the third quarter, as they accounted for 22% of all smartphones shipped worldwide. That means that 56 million large-screen smartphones, driven mainly by Samsung, shipped in the quarter, said research firm Canalys.

Target Offering $200 iPad Trade-In Deal – Target is running a promotion that will provide those who trade in their old iPad with a gift card worth at least $200. From now until Nov. 9, those who visit a Target Mobility store and trade in their iPad will get “at least $200” to use toward the purchase of a new iPad Air or other Target merchandise.

Anonymous’ ‘Million Mask March’ goes global – The protests were scheduled for 450 cities and towns worldwide — from Tampa, Fla., to Amsterdam to Mumbai. According to the group’s Facebook page, the demonstrations were meant to help people “remember who your enemies are: billionaires who own banks and corporations who corrupt politicians who enslave the people in injustice.”

Twitter’s news junkies are younger, more educated – Nearly one in 10 U.S. adults, or 8%, say they get some of their news through Twitter, and that has to be a good sign for the social media company that’s days from launching its IPO. Twitter users also are younger, more apt to use mobile devices and more educated. However, more than 30% of Facebook users say they get some of their news from the world’s largest social network.

The 140 Moments That Made Twitter Matter– As Twitter’s multibillion-dollar IPO looms, we surveyed TIME staff to pick 140 essential tweets—and hashtags and @-replies and more—that helped Twitter become a global phenomenon.

World Cybersecurity Leaders Call for Cooperation – Governments and businesses spend $1 trillion a year for global cybersecurity, but unlike wartime casualties or oil spills, there’s no clear idea what the total losses are because few will admit they’ve been compromised. Cybersecurity leaders from more than 40 countries are gathering at Stanford University this week to consider tackling that information gap by creating a single, trusted entity that would keep track of how much hackers steal.

Security:

Microsoft warns of targeted attacks on Windows Vista, Lync, Office, and more – In a rare out-of-schedule security advisory, Microsoft has posted word that it has become aware of targeted attacks on a newly found exploit that affects many of its currently supported software programs. They include Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office 2003 through 2010, and all supported versions of Microsoft Lync. In a blog post today, Microsoft stated the current attacks have been reported mostly in the Middle East and South Asia

A-list celebs, biz barons’ privates EXPOSED in limo hire hack – Personal information, financial records and salacious details about 850,000 celebrities, top executives and other customers were swiped by hackers from a limo-booking software company, it is claimed. Fortune-500 chief execs and A-list celebs are believed to be among those whose credit card details and addresses were dumped in a plain-text archive on the same servers that housed source code and private data slurped from Adobe and PR Newswire by miscreants.

How to check if your Adobe account was hacked – While Adobe’s calm and collected customer “alert” says that only about 2.9 million records were stolen, the actual tally is slightly higher than that. It’s really about 150 million. And no, your password wasn’t stored securely. So how do you know if your email and password were stolen during the hack? Easy. Just type it into the text field on adobe.cynic.al and click the search button. Spoiler alert: if you had an Adobe account, there’s a very, very strong chance your email will be found.

Google finally hides passwords from snoopers in new builds of Chromium – After denying any problem, Google adds option to protect plain text passwords. Chrome still makes passwords viewable in plain text by default, but the latest build of Chromium for Mac—the open source browser from which Chrome draws its code—gives users a new way to protect their passwords.

Senators question security at HealthCare.gov – U.S. lawmakers questioned the security of HealthCare.gov, the U.S. government’s troubled insurance-shopping website, after reports that one applicant’s personal information was shared with another applicant.

Call of Duty: Ghosts launches globally for Xbox 360 and PS3 – Activision has announced the official launch of its video game called Call of Duty: Ghosts around the world. Ghosts promises a new story and new innovations for multiple player gaming using a next-generation game engine promising improved graphics. Ghosts marks the first time in the Call of Duty franchise where players are the underdog against an enemy with superior numbers and firepower.

11 things we learned from Valve’s latest Steam Machine PR push – Recently, Valve invited a few select news outlets to its headquarters in Bellevue, Washington to get some hands-on time with the recently announced prototype Steam Machine and the companion controller. While Ars wasn’t among the outlets included, that doesn’t mean we can’t scour the reports for new information about Valve’s upcoming hardware plans. Here are the most important tidbits we’ve discovered.

Three more glorious minutes of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – If you’ve found yourself eagerly soaking up anything you can find about the second installment of The Hobbit that is soon coming to theaters, look no further. Warner Bros has put a new teaser up that paints a pretty clear picture of the grand scale we can expect from the upcoming film.

Anomaly 2 Hits iOS with Awesome Reverse-Tower Defense Action – Tower defense has been done to death, but Anomaly was a breath of fresh air that turned the genre on its head. Now Anomaly 2 has arrived on iOS with very much the same engaging gameplay that puts you in the role of the creeps, trying to avoid being annihilated by the defense towers. To top it off, the fate of humanity is at stake. No pressure, though.

Spend 20 bucks, build yourself an adjustable standing desk in 20 minutes – You probably know that sitting on your butt all day isn’t good for you, but you might not realize just how bad it is. According to one frightening study, people who spent more than 11 hours per day in a chair were 40 percent more likely to die within the next three years, compared with those who sat for 4 hours.

Something to think about:

“I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.”

– Michael Crichton

Today’s Free Downloads:

Extra Keys 2.1.0 – This small Windows desktop tool enables easy input of letters and symbols that may not appear on your normal keyboard. Type any accented characters for French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Scandinavian languages. Also many other special symbols – this small Windows desktop tool enables easy input of letters and symbols that may not appear on your normal keyboard.

In Pursuit of Freedom – The Pushback Continues:

Poll: Public Supports NSA Spying On Their Email, Neighbors And Foreign Leaders – Despite a torrent of outrage from the press, world leaders, and the United States Congress, most Americans still approve of the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices. Most importantly, public opinion barely budged a percentage point since the NSA’s global phone and Internet spy network was first revealed. We even polled whether Americans support the near universally condemned practice of spying on European allies. Yep, they support that one, too.

US officials say forget about clemency for Snowden – If it wasn’t already clear that the US government was unhappy with National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden—and the feds want him extradited, President Obama denounced him—it is now. Today, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and her House counterpart, Mike Rogers (R-MI), both emphasized there would be no mercy coming from Washington.

Privacy group files OECD complaints over UK telco spying – Privacy International has filed complaints against U.K. telecommunications companies for assisting British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) with mass interception of telephone and Internet traffic that passes through undersea fiber optic cables.

Don’t Compare The Brazilian Spying Case To The NSA’s Mass Surveillance Efforts – Earlier today a Brazilian newspaper broke the story that ABIN, the top intelligence agency in that country, has employed low-tech spying techniques on foreign diplomats. This is sticky for the country as it has been intensely critical of the NSA and its practices of mass surveillance the world around. If the NSA is spying, and ABIN is spying, do we come to a wash, all walking away simply saying that everyone spies, so calm down? Not in the least.

Apple Files With U.S. Government For More Information Request Transparency As It Releases First Report – In conjunction with this report, Apple has joined other companies like Dropbox, LinkedIn and Yahoo in filing an Amicus brief requesting more transparency be allowed in disclosing requests in the U.S. Apple has disclosed that it has had 719 total requests worldwide, and between 1,000 and 2,000 in the U.S. Those requests encompassed 769 different accounts worldwide, and between 2,000 and 3,000 in the U.S. Apple complied with 225 total account requests worldwide, and between 0 and 1,000 in the U.S.

Antivirus bods grilled: Do YOU turn a blind eye to government spyware? – Analysis Security guru Bruce Schneier has joined with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and 23 other privacy and digital rights activists to call on antivirus firms to publicly state they do not turn a blind eye towards state-sponsored malware. Meanwhile neutral observers of the security software market point out there’s no need for spy agencies to ask for their malware to be whitelisted by vendors because defences aren’t that strong in the first place.

Fix Windows – piece by piece;Video chat on TV;Huge toolbox – Android phone;Linux – right for you?;Multiboot Installer;Three tools stop companies spying;How to use your tech in public;10 great games for old PCs;Cryptolocker adds a $2000 late payment;Schmidt Lambasts NSA Over Spying;Speed up a slow PC – no new hardware.

When Windows breaks: How to fix it, piece by piece – Windows is so customizable, it’s tempting to tinker. Don’t like Internet Explorer’s default feel? There are settings for that! Hate the way Windows 8’s Ribbon UI looks? Tweak away! There’s usually no need to hit an irritating fly with that great, big “clean install” sledgehammer! Read this before you burn your installation to the ground and start all over.

A huge toolbox for your Android smartphone – Every once in a while, a tool like this will cross my desk and catch my attention, such as All-In-One Toolbox. This particular application offers 27 different tools for your Android smartphone, and it does so without the usual cumbersome or intrusive style of most other, similar tools. All-In-One Toolbox focuses on system cleaning and optimization, and it does a good job with both.

Don’t be that guy: How to use your tech in public – Technology isn’t responsible for the decline of civility and manners, but it sure hasn’t helped any. If anything, it’s made it easier to be obnoxious in public. With that in mind, we compiled a list of annoying tech habits that you really should get over. Like, yesterday.

10 great games for crummy old PCs – So you have an old, underpowered PC. Even if you have a hand-me-down computer from the Paleolithic Era, you can still enjoy a hearty helping of fun games. Check out this collection that will keep you playing for hours without giving your PC a stress-induced heart attack.

Great ways to video chat on a TV – Don’t get stuck behind a small screen when trying to stay in touch with loved ones. Here’s how you can get Skype and other services on your TV.

How to decide if Linux is right for you – Had it up to here with Windows? Can’t take another “blue screen of death”? Another 10-minute wait for your laptop to boot? Another spyware or virus hassle? Heck, maybe you just think Microsoft got it so far wrong with Windows 8.1, it’s time for a change. In fact, maybe it’s time for Linux. The open-source operating system offers users a Windows-like alternative with a few key advantages.

Google Launches Virtual Field Trips Via New Google+ Connected Classrooms Feature – Field trips generally venture only as far afield as the local heritage village, where you’re likely to catch pilgrim ‘Ezekial’ behind the butter churning hut sneaking a modern-day cigarette. Google wants to offer a more far-reaching experience, with a new Connected Classrooms initiative that lets classes take “virtual field trips” using Google+ Hangouts.

Speed up a slow PC without buying new hardware – If a once-fast computer has slowed to a crawl, you can’t really blame the hardware. Sure, you may be able to improve speed by adding RAM, upgrading the CPU, or replacing the hard drive with an SSD. But none of those solutions–all of which cost money–address the underlying problem. Your hardware isn’t underpowered. It’s overloaded. Cleaning out Windows will very likely speed up a PC. And no, I’m not suggesting reinstalling the operating system. There are less drastic fixes.

10 reasons you should offer remote support to your clients – For consultants and IT help pros who support multiple clients, the standard model of on-site visits not only can get tiresome, but it can also become expensive and less than efficient. That is why adding remote support to your options can be a real boon to your business. Not only will your clients appreciate the additional options, you will find the convenience brings a bit of sanity back into your work day.

Twitter a news source? Not so much – A new Pew survey shows only 16 percent of US adults use Twitter and only 8 percent use the social network for news. But these users tend to be young, educated, and wealthy.

Company News:

IBM Claims Twitter Infringes On At Least 3 Of Its Patents – As Twitter embarks on its initial public offering roadshow, the company has issued another update to its S-1 today with a curveball. IBM has recently issued a letter to Twitter alleging that it infringes on “at least three U.S. patents” held by IBM, “inviting us to negotiate a business resolution of the allegations.”

Microsoft debuts new ‘Honestly’ media campaign – Microsoft has uploaded two new TV commercials, one for Surface 2 and one for Windows 8.1 running on the Lenovo 11S laptop-notebook hybrid, that are based around the word ‘honestly’.

Games and Entertainment:

Nintendo Wii Mini Headed to the U.S. For $99.99 – The scaled-down system will hit store shelves by the middle of November, though Nintendo warned that availability will differ by location. The Wii mini is matte black with a red border and comes with the Mario Kart Wii game, a red Wii Remote Plus controller, and a red Nunchuk controller.

Call of Duty: Ghosts hacked already, aimbots and wall hacks implemented – Call of Duty: Ghosts isn’t expected to go on sale until tomorrow, but that hasn’t stopped a few copies being sold or leaked early. And it didn’t take long for someone to rip, crack, and upload copies of the game online. What followed was some quick work to implement aimbots, wall hacks, speed increases, and modifications to the scoring system that sees massive XP gains for every kill made.

Google game Ingress gets serious: Beta ends December 14 – Those dedicated enough to the Google game Ingress thus far will find a lovely badge waiting for them once the game leaves Beta mode on the 14th of December. It’s there that players that have reached level 5 will be getting a “Founders” badge while the rest of the world walks in their wake. Google also let it be known this week that the top five “most Elite”.

Off Topic (Sort of):

Virgin America Makes A Safety Video That’s Now A YouTube Hit – Last week, Virgin America launched of all things, a safety video that has become a YouTube hit with now more than 4 million views. It’s a musical that makes buckling a seat beat seem like fun. It celebrates the experience of flying with a focus on the fundamentals of safety that only a company like Virgin can pull off.

Apple’s Tim Cook Is Right, Anti-Gay Policies Hurt The Economy – The elusive CEO of the richest company in the world, Apple’s Tim Cook, has taken a rare step into the spotlight to urge Congress to ban sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. In a Wall Street Journal OpEd, Cook argues that passing the Employment Nondiscrimination Act is not only a moral imperative, but sound economic policy.

5 celebrity tech endorsements that flopped – When a tech company hires a celebrity to endorse their product, you would think it should help boost sales.. but sometimes the result is a flop and can actually hurt the brand image.

Gender gap: Why information security needs more women – A new report on infosec spotted significant differences in how men and women prioritize needed skills. Women only represent 11 percent of the Information-Security workforce which is discordant with other professions where women are near parity with men. According to the report. The report did not go into detail as to why the dramatic difference, but did say it was crucial that the status quo change.

A Further 50 Renowned Academics Speaking About God – The more scientifically literate, intellectually honest and objectively skeptical a person is, the more likely they are to disbelieve in anything supernatural, including god. These films are part of a compilation of some of the best examples of such individuals, and their thoughts on the divine. All the speakers featured are elite academics and professors at top institutions, some of whom are also Nobel Laureates. (suggested by Michael F.)

Something to think about:

“The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.”

– Patrick Young

Today’s Free Downloads:

RAMDisk 4.3.0 RC1 – RAMDisk is Freeware (up to 4GB disk size). It creates a virtual RAM drive, or block of memory, which your computer treats as if it were a disk drive. By storing files and programs into memory, you can speed up internet load times and disk-to-disk activities, accelerate databases and reduce compile times. Save and load features allow RAMDisk to appear as persistent storage, even through reboots.

YUMI 1.9.9.0 – Your Universal Multiboot Installer is the successor to MultibootISOs. It can be used to create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive containing multiple operating systems, antivirus utilities, disc cloning, diagnostic tools, and more. Contrary to MultiBootISO’s which used grub to boot ISO files directly from USB, YUMI uses syslinux to boot extracted distributions stored on the USB device, and reverts to using grub to Boot Multiple ISO files from USB, if necessary.

In Pursuit of Freedom – The Pushback Continues:

Google’s Eric Schmidt Lambasts NSA Over Spying – Mr. Schmidt said Google had registered complaints with the NSA, as well as President Barack Obama and members of the U.S. Congress. “The NSA allegedly collected the phone records of 320 million people in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be a risk. It’s just bad public policy…and perhaps illegal,” he said. Mr. Schmidt said in the interview that the right balance of security and privacy starts with finding the appropriate level of oversight. “There clearly are cases where evil people exist, but you don’t have to violate the privacy of every single citizen of America to find them,” he said.

Intel Agency Lawyers Urge Retention of Secret Data – Senior national security lawyers on Monday told an independent oversight board examining U.S. surveillance programs that the government needs to keep its trove of innocent Americans’ telephone records despite growing efforts in Congress to shut down the program. The lawyers also told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board during a hearing that a secret overseas Internet data-gathering program exposed last week was not an attempt to evade scrutiny by a federal intelligence court that supervises such operations.

NSA directorship to go civilian, report asserts – The NSA directorship might revert from a military to a civilian post, The Hill has reported. The Pentagon “has already drawn up a list of possible civilian candidates for the next NSA director,” the report said, although “no formal decision has been made yet.” The NSA directorship would relinquish authority over Cyber Command, and a separate military officer would be appointed to Cyber Command. If the report is correct, the change would represent a planet-shaking change at the NSA, which since 1971 by law has been directed by military officers.

Making a tablet your main computer;6 reasons you still need a desktop PC;Backup Android phone with free Super Backup;History Eraser for Android;Upgrade to Windows 8 for better security;Tablets: platforms are basically equal;Boobs and banner ads;Hacking reportedly NSA’s ‘growth area’;Instagram runs first ad;Skype to end all third-party app activity;What technology does Obama use?

Online Privacy: A Concern For All – Teenagers and twenty year-olds couldn’t care less about online privacy. In fact, it’s a thing of the past. That’s probably what you think when you see the amount of activity on popular social networks like Facebook, Tumblr, or Twitter. Actually, younger people do care quite a bit about online security and protection. J.D. Power’s report “Consumer Concerns about Data Privacy Rising: What Can Businesses Do?” reveals that personal privacy is a concern in all countries across all ages.

Let go of that laptop: the ultimate guide to making a tablet your main computer – With the right apps, peripherals, and cloud services, you could leave behind that laptop for good. The “laptop killer” of tablets has yet to emerge, but you can still configure a slate that puts your laptop out to pasture. With the tablet’s lighter weight, longer battery life, and near-instant boot-up, the building blocks of a productivity engine are already there.

Six reasons you still need a desktop PC– Now that you’ve been liberated by the mobile age, you may be ready to consign your clunky desktop PC to the scrap heap. Not so fast. Though it’s certainly past its prime, the desktop PC is far from useless. For some tasks, it’s actually still the superior tool. Here are six compelling reasons to keep the old workhorse around.

Skype to end all third-party app activity in December – Skype will no longer support third-party desktop application development beginning in December, the company has announced. This includes all recording, broadcasting, and other kinds of apps, but it also includes third-party hardware such as headphones with on-board call controls. Skype is offering no exceptions to the rule, and its official replacement offerings are slim to none.

Kids’ No. 1 holiday wish? The iPhone, says a survey – In a survey that asked which gadget was most desired by kids, the 12- to 17-year-old age group showed its conservatism, opting for the tried-and-true. Though it was girls who wanted iPhones far more than boys.

Online Gambling Arrives in Delaware – Starting Nov. 8, Delaware residents will be able to bet real money on poker, blackjack, roulette, and slots all from the comfort of their computers. The first state will now also be the first to fully embrace Internet gambling. According to Delaware Online, Delaware’s gaming industry hopes the move will bring in a younger, more tech-savvy demographic compared to the typically older casino customers. They’re also trying to get ahead of competitors like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which are both looking to implement similar systems soon.

Google employees publicly gripe about Google via Quora – Taken as a whole, the thread expresses a sentiment that Google is nothing like how it used to be when it was a scrappy young startup. Rather, it’s much more like a stereotypical, corporate-American workplace infested with immaturity, arrogance, and mediocrity, if the thread is to be believed.

Must-know privacy tips for Google, Facebook and other online services – Recent headlines about shadowy government agencies, high-profile hack attacks, and your face in Google ads drive home a crucial point: Your online privacy is best protected when you keep an iron grip on the information you’re handing out. If your info is on a server somewhere, it’s not truly yours.

Black Friday Deals Already Upon Us – The online retail giant on Friday kicked things off with the launch of a Black Friday deals store and electronics holiday gift guide. The deals store will offer discounts on thousands of items from the likes of Hasbro, Samsung, Canon, Belkin, and more now through Black Friday weekend.

Security:

Google Adding Automatic Malware Blocking to Chrome – Google is adding several security updates to its Chrome browser, including automatic malware blocking and the option to reset browser settings. Going forward, Google will also “automatically block downloads of malware that we detect” in Chrome. At this point, the feature is only available in the Canary build version of Chrome – the earlier, test version of the browser that comes before dev, beta, and stable. But it will eventually hit the stable channel.

Champion security best practices as a community service – We have a civic duty to the general populace to ensure that security awareness issues are front and centre. It would be insidious of us to sit back and rely on – gulp! – mainstream media to convey factual security information and content. If you’re like many security pros and shun human contact the same way the Kardashians shun integrity, then you’re probably not too keen on getting out in the community. So how can you start?

The Morris Worm: Internet malware turns 25– 25 years ago much of the Internet – still very small at the time – crashed. The cause was a selfish experiment, turned Frankenstein monster, instigated by a graduate student at Cornell named Robert Morris.

Businesses suffer from a false sense of security, study shows – McAfee says small and midsize businesses are suffering from a false sense of security, based on a recent study that showed a high degree of confidence that their data and devices were safe from attackers, despite industry research and evidence to the contrary.

Finnish Government Hit With ‘Serious’ Data Breach – The Finnish government has confirmed it suffered a “serious data security violation,” which was reportedly carried out over a period of four years and allowed hackers to pilfer unspecified amounts of data.

Instagram runs first ad: video ads to follow – The ad represents the inaugural insertion of a permanent advertising program for the app. It depicts a high-end watch by fashion designer Michael Kors, in situ with a gold-leafed coffee mug, some colorful comestibles, and a travel-related photo postcard.

Apple’s Tim Cook urges workplace equality – In a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, Cook exhorts the Senate to support the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which aims to protect the hiring and employment rights of gay and lesbian Americans.

Boobs and banner ads: Twitter’s dilemma – Welcome or otherwise, image and video previews in tweets highlight the company’s tension between building a service that people love and pleasing Wall Street.

Games and Entertainment:

Kairosoft Releases Pocket Harvest On Android – The newest game out of Kairosoft might sound a little on the bland side, but let’s be honest–it’s going to gobble up your free time. Pocket Harvest has arrived on Android with all the farming adventure you can handle.

Off Topic (Sort of):

Presidential gadgets: What technology does Obama use? – The most tech-savvy U.S. president to date, Barack Obama uses the best devices and technology for the job, in and outside of the White House. Here’s a look at some of the devices, platforms and technology he uses to carry out his day-to-day presidential duties.

Man implants smartphone-sized computer in arm to become DIY cyborg – Self-professed biohacker Tim Cannon has become the first human being to have a non-medical computer implanted inside his body. The Circadia 1.0 is about the size of a small smartphone and was implanted in Tim’s forearm without the aid of anesthetic or a licensed doctor. The device is designed to gather biometric data and beam it to a mobile device, making Tim Cannon the first DIY cyborg.

Police chief threatens Facebook pot critic with arrest – The Interim Police Chief of Columbia, S.C., appears not to appreciate those who suggest his department should catch shooters rather than pot users. He replies that he suspects the poster “might be a criminal.” I am not sure of the exact timeline of Santiago’s confirmation as permanent police chief. However, if the department’s Facebook timeline is anything to go by, there might be quite some opposition. All from people who might be criminals, of course.

It’s Not the ”Radical Shaykh” it’s Islam – Fahad Qureshi – When Muslim organizations invite Shaykhs who speak openly about the values of Islam, the Islamophobic western media starts murdering the character of that organization and the invited speaker. The question these Islamophobic journalists need to reflect upon is; are these so called ”radical” views that they criticize endorsed only by these few individuals being invited around the globe, or does the common Muslims believe in them. If the common Muslims believe in these values that means that more or less all Muslims are radical and that Islam is a radical religion. Since this is not the case, as Islam is a peaceful religion and so are the masses of common Muslims, these Shaykhs cannot be radical. (recommended by Michael F.) A serious attempt to twist logic into a pretzel. We have reason to be afraid.

Microsoft’s archive has some odd stuff – The archive was first started in 1989 and now has collected 65,000 items, ranging from Gates’ Harvard transcripts to the receipt for the carpet that was put in the company’s first Albuquerque office. However, the video concentrates on some of the oddest artifacts in the archive, such as a plastic prop full of skulls with red writing on them to a full size Clippy costume that was worn by an actual person in front of Gates on stage.

Something to think about:

“Three things are certain; birth, death and data loss. You control the last.”

– Anonymous

Today’s Free Downloads:

History Eraser for Android – It’s a history eraser for android device, and it can clean history of apps by only one tap. It’s similar to the “ccleaner” on PC. It can help you to protect your privacy, and it can also help you to free up the internal storage. No root premission required!

All In One: NirLauncher 1.18.31 – NirLauncher is a package of more than 100 portable freeware utilities for Windows. In order to start using NirLauncher, simply extract all files in the package into your flash drive, or any other disk you want. After you extracted the package, simply run the executable file – NirLauncher.exe

KeePass Password Safe 2.24.0 – KeePass is a free/open-source password manager or safe which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk. So you only have to remember one single master password or insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database.

‘Reform bill’ would codify ability of NSA to spy on Americans, critics say – Many privacy rights groups are pointing the what’s left out of the legislation. Rather than prohibiting the NSA from collecting metadata records of phone calls made by U.S. citizens, Feinstein’s bill actually codifies the practice that was exposed in documents leaked by fugitive Edward Snowden, said Alan Butler, appellate advocacy counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

Britain’s GCHQ Collaborated With Other EU Nations To Enable Broad Internet Surveillance – It has been known for some time that the United States and British governments, through a number of programs such as the UK’s Tempora effort, directly tap the fiber-optic cables that are the backbone of the Internet, collecting data in massive quantity. That four other countries do the same is, therefore, not surprising, but it is dispiriting. It will be far harder than we initially perhaps hoped to end this sort of mass surveillance. That the GCHQ was willing to provide what is described as “a leading role in advising its European counterparts” in how to get around legal restrictions is simply depressing.

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Daves Computer Tips
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What's On My PC
The intent of this blog is to share my knowledge base of computers, software, gadgets and information technology in terms that is presentable and understandable to ALL; and at the same time feed my obsession for information technology by learning from oth